Tossups round 1 center of the known universe open/rollapalooza 1999

TOSSUPS -- ROUND 10 CENTER OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE OPEN/ROLLAPALOOZA 1999

1. When Pius V proposed having the nudes in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment covered, this painter of Pentecost and Cleansing of the Temple supposedly suggested demolishing the whole fresco so he could paint another as pleasant to look at. The ensuing furor reputedly explains why he left Italy for good soon thereafter. FTP name the painter of The Dream of Philip II, Burial of Count Orgaz, and View of Toledo.

Answer: El Greco (if some smartass says Domenikos Theotokopoulos, roll your eyes but accept it)
2. She influenced Rustin Parr. Born in Ireland as Elly Kedward, she has been seen around Tappy East Creek, Coffin Rock, and other places around Burkittsville, Maryland. FTP, name this woman searched for in a

"documentary project" in a 1999 film.

answer: the Blair Witch (accept Elly Kedward before her name is said)
3. You probably know that the story of Palamon and Arcite is told by the Knight in the Canterbury Tales. And, you also probably know that A Midsummer Night’s Dream focuses on the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. All four characters also appear in a 1612 play which pits the Athenians against the Thebans. For ten points, identify that play, a collaboration between John Fletcher and William Shakespeare.

Answer: Two Noble Kinsmen

4. This constant is a measure of the strength of an interaction between a charged particle and the electromagnetic field. The definition is (e^2)/(4*pi*epsilon naught*c* Hbar) [READ: e to the second over (4 times pi times epsilon naught times c times H-bar) ] or very nearly 1/137. Its symbol is alpha and it was first introduced by Sommerfield in 1916. It was necessary in an attempt to explain splitting of hydrogenic spectral lines. FTP, what is this constant now being evaluated via the quantum Hall effect?

Answer: fine structure constant

5. He was eulogized in a Wanda Coleman poem. There's not much to say about his 14 years of life, except that his parents in Chicago were wrong when they thought he'd be safer during the summer at his grandparents'. FTP name the youth whose killers were acquitted despite admitting their guilt because he had allegedly whistled at a white woman in Mississippi.

Answer: Emmett Till

6. As originally written by C.A. Tindley, this hymn opened "When the storms of life are raging." The lyrics were reworked by Leiber and Stoller, who also added the bass line they credited with the song's enduring popularity because "it's like it drills a hole through your head." Notable cover versions include those by Mickey Gilley and (believe it or not) Cassius Clay. FTP name this song whose more familiar opening is, "When the night has come and the land is dark," a huge hit for Ben E. King.

Answer: "Stand By Me"

7. One tradition said he was from Thrace, another from Phrygia; Plutarch said he was an advisor to Croesus in Lydia. In Jonathan Swift's "The Battle of the Books" he is found sleeping beneath a tree, his armor hanging in the branches. First, though, he compared he relationship between traditional and modern authors to a spider and a fly. That would have fit in well with all his other stories with two animals in the title. FTP name this legendary fabulist.

Answer: Aesop

8. Its last chapter is called "Why I Am a Destiny." It is subtitled "How One Becomes What One Is." It features the philosopher's look back at past works, including "Thus Spake Zarathustra." FTP, name this work of philosophic autobiography and re-examination by Nietzsche.

answer: Ecce Homo

9. His advice to political aspirants was frank: "Rail against taxes of all kinds, office-holders, and bad harvest weather; and wind up with a flourish about the heroes who fought and bled for our liberties in the times that tried men's souls. To be sure you run the risk of being considered a bladder of wind, but never mind that, you will find enough of the same fraternity to keep you in countenance." He broke with Andrew Jackson over tariffs and internal improvements and joined the Whig party before seeking a fresh start in Texas. FTP name this Tennessee politician who died at the Alamo.

Answer: David Crockett

10. Ratios used as measures of it include stockholders’ equity to total assets, current liabilities to net revenues, and cash plus marketable securities to current liabilities. It has a second, less obvious dimension, the risk of a loss between an asset’s stated value and the money realized for that asset. FTP name the measure of a firm’s ability to meet its maturing cash obligations, usually thought of as just the time that would be needed to convert an asset into money.

Answer: liquidity

11. Early adherents included Francis David, Faustus Socinus, and John Biddle. Joseph Priestley was among its ranks, as were William Ellery Channing and Ralph Waldo Emerson. FTP name this branch of Protestantism whose adherents reject the doctrine of the Trinity.

Answer: Unitarians

12. His most famous invention was devised for use by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, which put it to work for the first time in 1890. FTP name this inventor responsible for the first electrically powered computer and its data entry method, the punch card.

Answer: Herman Hollerith

13. His last name was also a slang word for stools. Described as "his complexion was of a sickly yellow -- his looks denoted famine," he was unprepossessing in the extreme but still managed to make himself indispensible to the Bramble family, one of whom it turns out is his natural father. FTP name the title character of a 1771 novel by Tobias Smollett.

Answer: Humphrey Clinker

14. Carried to its extreme, this process forms amorphous solids, such as asphalt, butter, or glass, out of liquids whose particles are too cumbersome to form a regular crystal lattice. A liquid with smaller particles is not stable in this state, and the addition of a seed crystal often induces crystallization of the entire liquid. FTP give the term for chilling a liquid below its freezing point.
Answer: supercooling
15. Shel Silverstein's unlikely collaborator on the screenplay of Things Change first gained attention for the short plays Duck Variations and Sexual Perversity in Chicago. His works include the nonfiction collections Some Freaks and Writing in Restaurants and the screenplays for The Untouchables and The Verdict. FTP name the playwright of American Buffalo and Speed-the-Plow, winner of a 1984 Pulitzer for Glengarry Glen Ross.

Answer: David Mamet

16. This group was finally dismantled after the victory at Chaerona in 338 BC by Philip II of Macedon. It suffered its first big blow during the Peloponnesian War against one of its charter members. Originally a defensive league against Persia, it was dominated by Athens. FTP, name this league of Greek city-states named for the island on which it met.

Answer: Delian League or League of Delos

17. The Winnoski River and Otter Creek flow into this body of water. It includes St. Albans Bay, Mallets Bay, and Missisquoi Bay. Grand Isle and Isle La Mott lie in this lake which in an odd Congressional maneuver this year was briefly named the 6th Great Lake. FTP, name this lake between New York and Vermont.

answer: Lake Champlain

18. His early work was shaped primarily by German Romantics, notably Wagner and Mahler. But his later works, especially the first and last movements of his 1926 Lyric Suite, display a preoccupation with technique and a formulaic structure that makes them more challenging for listeners. He was inspired to create his best known work while watching an underground production of a hundred-year-old play by Georg Buechner. FTP name this composer of Wozzeck.
Answer: Alban Berg
19. The training site for Eicke's Death's head Brigade, famous residents included Bruno Bettelheim and Martin Niemoller. It was initially designed for political opponents, but after Kristallnacht in 1938 10,000 Jewish men were interned there. Constructed for 5,000 prisoners, it peaked at 30,000 and seldom held less than 12,000. FTP name Himmler's model concentration camp outside Munich, the first major one to open.

Answer: Dachau

20. One of several sites important in hemopoiesis, it’s a key component of the reticulo-endothelial system. While it’s perfused by blood rather than lymph, technically speaking this organ is the largest mass of lymphoid tissue in higher vertebrates. FTP name this storehouse of red blood cells, which inexplicably shares its name with the flatulent superhero played by Paul Reubens in Mystery Men.
Answer: spleen
21. In the aftermath of a tremendous storm, this city's government collapsed, the mayor and all members of the city council perished, as did the election commissioner. The city government was reorganized around the principle of elected administrative department heads, who together comprised a "city commission." It was thus, in 1901, the first U.S. city to abolish the office of mayor. FTP name this coastal Texas city which lost its opportunity to rival Houston as a seaport because of the hurricane sometimes called "Isaac's Storm."

Answer Galveston

TOSSUPS -- ROUND 11 CENTER OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE OPEN/ROLLAPALOOZA 1999

1. He published the first book-length study of Shaw's plays and an influential study of Nietzsche. He also fabricated an April Fool's day story on the origin of the bathtub and spent years unsuccessfully trying to correct the many sources that took it as gospel. His lasting legacy includes his monumental 1919 study The American Language. FTP name this journalist, better remembered for the sharp wit of his American Mercury.

Answer: Henry Louis Mencken
2. Drug users may take this benzodiazepine produced by Hoffmann-Laroche to enhance the high of low-quality heroin, mellow the high of cocaine, or ease down from a binge using crack. It can also be used to avoid drunk driving charges, because of its synergistic effect with alcohol. Amnesia and disinhibition are also produced in combination with alcohol. FTP name this sedative/hypnotic which made the news for its use in cases of date rape.

ANSWER: Rohypnol or Flunitrazepam (prompt on date rape pill or roofies)

3. He commanded the Egyptian air force during the October War. In 1975 Anwar Sadat appointed him vice president. FTP name this man, who since Sadat's 1981 assassination has served as President of Egypt.

Answer: Hosni Mubarak

4. Saying dourly that “painting is not a sport,” he hated to paint outside, translating in the studio sketches made at cotton markets in New Orleans, racetracks, and other outdoor venues. He used the same method for his prefered indoor sites such as laundries, shops, cafes, and especially dance studios. FTP name the painter of The Orchestra at the Opera, The Bellelli Family, Absinthe, and The Dance Lesson.
Answer: Edgar Degas
5. Issac Hill was part of this group. So, were the journalists Amos Kendall and F. P. Blair. William B. Lewis. Duff Green, and John Eaton - along with Vice-President Martin van Buren - also were part of this informal group that acted as advisors to President Andrew Jackson. FTP, what was this group called?

answer: Kitchen Cabinet

6. Techniques include chaining, discrimination, and reinforcement, which may be internal or external and partial or full. Behaviors can be acquired, maintained, or eliminated through it. FTP name this basic learning process in which a behavior that is followed by a positive consequence will increase in probability.

Answer: operant conditioning; accept instrumental conditioning.
7. Luckily his fame doesn’t depend on his one truly awful, self-serving autobiographical novel. Nor did the death of Louis Washkansky a mere 18 days after surgery diminish his doctor’s reputation, especially after the subsequent, more successful operation on Philip Blaiberg. FTP name this South African native who performed the first heart transplant.
Answer: Christiaan Barnard
8. Representing prospective student Autherine Lucy in Alabama, he rejected reporters' suggestions that desegregation should proceed more slowly by saying "I believe in gradualism. I also believe ninety-odd years is pretty gradual." FTP name this NAACP attorney who also played a leading role in arguing for the plaintiffs in Brown v. Board of Education.

Answer Thurgood Marshall

9. His poetry combines maudlin sentimentality with distinctly regional humor--at least it must be regional, because the author of this question has never been anywhere people seemed to enjoy it. His dialect poems include "Waitin' for the Cat to Die," "The Raggedy Man," and "Little Orphant Annie," and perhaps his best known work begins "It takes a heap o' livin' in a house to make it home." FTP name this Hoosier poet.

Answer James Whitcomb Riley
10. One of the organizers of the International Geophysical Year, his research into terrestrial magnetism and his use of rockets for studying the upper atmosphere advanced space exploration. However, his lasting fame rests on the discovery of charged particles which arise from solar flares and cosmic rays. For 10 points, name this Iowa physicist, namesake of the two bands of these particles which circle the earth.

Answer: James Van Allen

11. He devised such methods as time-motion studies and information flow charts. Efficient management of time and costs, the proper routing and scheduling of work, and standardization of tools and equipment were the three principles he extolled. FTP name this thinker whose 1911 book Principles of Scientific Management shaped modern American manufacturing.

Answer Frederick Winslow Taylor

12. Although he helped James II crush the rebellion of the Duke of Monmoutn, he was an early backer of William of Orange in the Glorious Revolution. Then he lost favor with William, got back in touch with James, then regained favor under Queen Anne. He was so successful at Ramillies, Malplaquet, and elsewhere that rivals accused him of prolonging the War of th Spanish Succession to give him more chances to win. FTP name the victorious general at Blenheim, founder of an illustrious line of British statesmen that stretched into the 20th century.
Answer: The Duke of Marlborough or John Churchill
13. They were created by shadowy Soviet biological research and spread to the West only after the explosion of an airplane with stolen seeds. They grow seven feet tall. Initially a novelty, they turn out to have a fatal sting and come to be associated with fear, pain, and misery after most of mankind is blinded by a meteor shower. FTP name these walking plants, who had their day in a 1951 novel by John [not Don] Wyndham.

Answer: triffids

14. A corn merchant by trade, his own sense of inadequacy overwhelms any satisfaction at his outward success. His ultimate downfall comes from his inability to admit his shameful secret, that in a drunken stupor he sold a sailor named Newsom his wife and kids. FTP name the protagonist of Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge.

Answer: Michael Henchard; accept The Mayor of Casterbridge if someone buzzes before "protagonist.

15. The surviving fragments of his two poems, including Purifications, are the most extensive writings we have from any philosopher of his era. In his most famous work he theorized that anatomical parts stick to each other in random configurations, some of which are well adapted for survival, thus prefiguring Darwin by 2,500 years. FTP name this pre-Socratic philosopher, whom legend tells us left to his death in Mt. Etna.

Answer: Empedocles

16. At last writing, she's still writing in her '80's. The editor who encouraged her to compilethe poems that became A Street in Bronzeville did so in such an insulting manner that she submitted the collection to another publisher instead. FTP name the winner of the 1950 Pulitzer for Annie Allen, whose poems include "kitchenette building," "The Children of the Poor," and "we real cool."

Answer: Gwendolyn Brooks

17. The numerical school dispenses with the weighting used in the classical approach; data points are considered unit characters and arranged into sets or phenons, which are then organized into a dendrogram. Relationships thus evaluated are termed phenetic if determined by morphological similarity or cladistic if they depend upon community of descent. FTP name the scientific discipline pioneered by Carolus Linnaeus, the theory and practice of classification.
Answer: taxonomy
18. Known to have a fiery temper, during an argument with a singer he picked her up by the waist and dangled her out of a second story window. You might expect this from a composer of operas, such as Almira, Ottone, and Orlando, but it hardly fits the more serene image we might get from Water Music. FTP name this composer best known for Judas Maccabeus, Esther, and a few other oratorios.
Answer: George Frideric Handel
19. It ends with "The Perfect Fan." Some titles seem to contradict each other, like "Don't Want You Back," "Don't Wanna Lose You Now," and "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely." It opens with "Larger Than Life" and then "I Want It That Way." FTP, name this album by the Backstreet Boys.

answer: Millennium

20. This city lies on Hobson's Bay which leads to Port Philip Bay. Some of its major suburns include Glen Waverley, Broadmeadows, and Moorabbin. The Yarra canal goes through the city of the city, which is the largest city in Victoria state, Australia. FTP, name this city.

answer: Melbourne

21. The symptoms typically last for three to six days, after which the patient goes into a deep sleep but is at risk of death from pneumonia or heart failure. The patient loses sense of time and place and often hallucinates, and the hallucinations commonly do involve frightening creatures such as rats or pink snakes. FTP name this psychotic reaction, usually found only in chronic drinkers over age 30.
Answer: delirium tremens or D.T.’s

TOSSUPS -- ROUND 12 CENTER OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE OPEN/ROLLAPALOOZA 1999

1. There are actually only five species of these, but most have multiple nicknames. For example, the redfish, krasnaya ryba, blueback, and Fraser River are all really sockeyes, and the black mouth, quinnat, tyee, spring, and Columbia River are all chinooks. FTP name this group of fish, whose other members include the chum, pink, and silver or Coho.

Answer: salmon
2. The components are calculated using the Laspreyes formula and then aggregated using value-of-shipments weights from the various industrial censuses. It’s among the oldest economic series published by the U.S. goverment, first appearing in 1902 with back data to 1890. Component indexes include agriculture, transportation, utilities, mining, and manufacturing, with service industry data still considered incomplete. FTP name this Federal index formerly known as the Wholesale Price Index.
Answer: Producer Price Index; prompt for more on early buzz with Wholesale Price Index
3. The title refers to Jadine, the niece of Sydney and Ondine Childs, whose education at the Sorbonne and modeling career have been sponsored by the family the Childs serve as domestics. She engages in a love affair with William Green, known as Son, on the lam for eight years after murdering his adulterous wife. By the end of the novel the jungle begins to overrun the Caribbean estate where all this takes place. FTP name this allegorical 1981 novel by Toni Morrison.

Answer: Tar Baby

4. Additions were made in 1949, adding humane treatment of civilians; 1929, when Germany finally signed on; and in 1925, when poison gas was outlawed. It was one of the sources of authority cited at the Nuremberg trials because among those forced into slave labor by the Nazis were Russian POW's. FTP name this 1864 international agreement whose best-known provisions protected military prisoners.

Answer: Geneva Convention

5. He has a little idol of Yojo. He meets a friend in the Spouter Inn. He has a coffin-canoe made when seized with a fever that burns through his numerous tattoos. Nevertheless, he feels bound to his friend Ishmael and the crew of the Pequod. FTP, name this character in Moby Dick.

Answer: Queequeg

6. This is the theory of electric and magnetic fields and of the interactions of the charged particles that produce them. It also provides the most accurate predictions of any theory any physicist has ever devised. FTP, what is this theory, mostly the combination of quantum mechanics and Maxwell's equation. which shares its abbreviation with a Latin phrase used in logical proofs?

Answer: Quantum electrodynamics [prompt on QED]
7. It didn't matter how weird the instructions got -- he followed 'em. Lie on your left side for 390 days and on your right 40 days? Sure. Cut your hair and beard with a sword and burn or scatter the clippings? Sure. Eat barley cakes baked on human dung? Okay, he balked at that one, but only to ask if he could substitute cow dung. Eat this scroll? Well, wouldn't you if God showed up in a wheeled chariot and told you to? FTP name this Old Testament prophet, who described himself as "a watchman for the house of Israel."

Answer: Ezekiel

8. His notable recordings include deceptively simple versions of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and I Should Care, but his blues improvisations have gained him more lasting fame in such works as Trinkle Tinkle, Bags’ Groove, Four in One, and Misterioso. FTP name this jazz pianist, whose middle name is a geometric solid.
Answer: Thelonious Monk
9. A long-time star of stage and screen, he has his first starring vehicle hitting the big screen this weekend. In it, he musters all of his determination and courage and heads off on an action-packed rescue mission that plunges him into Grouchland, to save his beloved, fuzzy blue blanket. For 10 points, identify this most ticklish of the Muppets.

Answer: Elmo

10. Her novels include such contemporary pieces as A Matter of Time and The Life I Really Lived. More typical works include Leafy Rivers, The Witchdiggers, and The Massacre at Fall Creek, all set on the Ohio or Indiana frontier. FTP name this Hoosier whose most successful novel was her first, Friendly Persuasion.
Answer: Jessamyn West
11. Maureen Faulkner was there on commencement day at Evergreen State University this year; Governor Gary Locke canceled his appearance. The commencement speaker cited the Declaration of Independence, stating that “For any repressed people, revolution ... is a right,” and some of the students in attendance exercised that right by walking out of the ceremony or turning their backs on the videotaped speech. For 10 points, identify the speaker, convicted in 1982 of killing Maureen Faulkner’s husband, Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner, who has since become a symbol for the anti-death penalty movement.

Answer: Mumia Abu-Jamal

12. One of its cultural influences was the discoveries of the ruins at Pompeii and Herculaneum in the 1740’s. Adherents tried to impose strict rules and guidelines to return the linear purity and planned simplicity of Greco-Roman art as interpreted by the Italian Renaissance. FTP name this rigid art movement advocated by Batoni, Ingres, and David [dah-VEED].
Answer: neoclassicism
13. We only vaguely understand how they reduce the activation energies of reactions, but that’s what they do. Almost all are globular proteins consisting of either a single polypeptide or of multiple polypeptides held together by non-covalent bonds. The other molecules acted upon by them are called substrate. FTP name this class of proteins that catalyze chemical reactions in living organisms at a high rate.
Answer: enzymes
14. Aspirations are lost. Voiced stops become voiceless. Voiceless stops become voiceless fricatives. These consonantal changes took place between Proto-Indo-European and Proto-German according to this. FTP, whose linguistic law is this?

answer: Grimm's Law

15. In 1650 in Connecticut, they authorized the imprisonment of "common fowlers, tobacco-takers, and other persons who could give no good account of their time," as well as forbidding anyone to give lodging to a Quaker. More recent counterparts have focused on business activities, prohibiting the sale of many commodities, including film, tobacco, and alcoholic beverages on Sundays. FTP what two word term is used to describe such laws?

Answer Blue Laws

EDITOR’S NOTE: Speaking of which, those of you staying in Chattanooga tonight and hoping to enjoy convivial alcohol might wish to buy it before midnight...
16. In 1969, he devised an electron capture detector. Interested in the interconnectedness of scientific systems, he stated that the planet Earth probably works like a single organism - a theory he called Gaia. FTP, name this British scientist.

answer: James Loveluck

17. "Suck it in suck it suck it in if you're rin tin tin or anne boleyn. Make a desperate move or else you'll win and then begin to see what you're doing to me this MTV is not for free its so PC its killing me so desparately I sing to thee of love. Sure but also rage and hate and pain and fear of self." FTP, this is an excerpt from what Blues Traveler song?

Answer: Hook (Prompt on early Blues Traveler)

18. The original commanding general, Sir Ian Hamilton, was relieved after 6 months, and the man who conceived the operation, one Winston Churchill, was dropped from the government. Time and again an initiative was taken, a brief advantage was missed, and another stalemate ensued. The Allies retreated after 8 months and 250,000 casualties -- over 50% of the force sent to this small peninsula on the Dardanelles. FTP name this frustrating battle of 1915.
Answer: Gallipoli
19.
20. He does not sneeze when the Duchess' pepper soup is too strong. He later appears on a croquet court near a hedgehog. His most famous "appearance" is in a tree where he tells how to get to the March Hare's and the Mad Hatter's houses while he slowly vanishes, leaving only his grin. FTP, name this animal in “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."

answer: the Cheshire Cat

21. He achieved the presidency on a pro-business platform, but once in office he promoted a lower tariff and an expansion of the powers of the ICC. Fully aware of emerging American economic strength, he pursued a diplomatic strategy dubbed "dollar diplomacy." Aside from one major public relations gaffe, most historians consider him a successful but unspectacular president. Voters disagreed, and he carried only Utah and Vermont in his quest for re-election, thus achieving the dubious distinction of being the only incumbent president to finish third in a presidential election. FTP name this 1912 loser.

Answer William Howard Taft